BlackBerry Z10 review

Wired rating

Wired

Tired

Price

£480

The BlackBerry Z10 is a full-screen BlackBerry with a terrific
display, new operating system, fast processor, 4G capability and
some additional business security features.

For a while now it's felt as the BlackBerry brand has been living
on borrowed time, its innovations slowly but steadily eroded by the
juggernauts of Apple, Google and even Microsoft. But now comes a
potential saviour, on sale now for £480.

From its HD screen to its nippy processor, business
security features and decent 8-megapixel camera, the BlackBerry Z10
does a sound job

Design
The Z10 is a solid slab of tech measuring a hefty 130x66mm but
manages to keep the thickness aspect down to just 9mm, which is a
mite portly by iPhone 5 standards, but still slim enough for most.
There's a power button and headphone jack on top and as with
BlackBerrys of yore, the volume buttons flank an additional key,
but it's no longer programmable -- it mutes the sound or if you
hold it down you'll access voice control functions. On the opposite
side are a microSD power/sync port and a mini HDMI out for sending
your videos and pics to an HDTV.

BlackBerry

In common with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and others the removable back is
distressingly thin and flimsy. Fortunately it clips securely into
place and doesn't suffer from any obvious flex. Underneath are an
oddly long and thin battery, plus slots for micro SIM and microSD
memory cards.

It looks beautiful and was a cinch to
use

Screen quality
The 4.2-inch touchscreen has an HD resolution of 1,280x768 pixels
and a pixel density of 356ppi. That puts it ahead of the iPhone 5's
Retina display sharpness-wise, and on a par with Nokia's Lumia 920.
It looks beautiful and was a cinch to use. Beneath the screen is a
large BlackBerry logo across an outsized bezel.

There's a point to this besides vanity however, since the bezel
is active -- you use it to move around the various screens by
swiping up through the screen. Swiping from within an app will show
you compressed views of all the apps you're currently running, and
from there you can either choose to go into one or swipe to the
left to reveal your shortcuts. Swiping up and to the right gets you
inot the BlackBerry Hub, which pulls together all your emails,
texts and social networking updates.

BlackBerry

BB10
The BlackBerry 10 operating system marks a break from past
versions, and sees BlackBerry moving a step or two closer to what
we've come to expect from iOS, with a
little bit of Android. So you get
multiple home pages that you can populate with shortcut icons, but
there are no active widgets to hit you with regularly updated info
as soon as you switch on the phone. Then again, you won't get the
battery drain that constant updates tend to demand.

It's clear that BlackBerry still sees business as its
core, but that's really the only area where it has any kind of an
edge

One asset for business types who sign up to the BlackBerry
Enterprise Server is the BlackBerry Balance feature. So you can
swipe up to flip between your personal phone settings and your
company's corporate account, with whatever content your IT
department has established. You can't copy between the two, so
security concerns are covered, which ticks the BYOD boxes for the
suits and will certainly make some IT managers very happy.

It's clear that BlackBerry still sees business as its core, but
that's really the only area where it has any kind of an edge. For
virtually all other smartphone aspects, it's long since ceased to
be a leader. Still, the Z10's certainly a good enough phone that
you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with one.

Virtual keyboard
BlackBerry is still strong on messaging, and the new text
prediction is unique. The keyboard will consistently throw up
suggestions for possible words, but unusually, these will be dotted
around the keyboard, based on the position of the next letter for
each prediction. If you want to use one, you flick it up onto the
sentence you're typing. The flick technique takes a little bit of
getting used to, but once you're there it's pretty easy to use.

It's a bit disconcerting that the onscreen keyboard only shows
capital letters though -- they'll appear as lower case unless you
say otherwise, but when you're used to Android or iOS offering a
choice, it seems a bit weird.

BlackBerry

Performance There are no quad-core processing pyrotechnics, but the
dual-core 1.5GHz engine is backed by a full 2GB RAM, which puts it
a step in front of most dual-core handsets and there were no
obvious signs of lag, even when we were running a dozen or so apps
at once.

Speaking of apps, of course BlackBerry World doesn't have
anything like the sheer number available to iOS or Android users,
and nor is it ever likely to. But the important thing is that it
has lots of the major ones and comes with about 35 preinstalled,
including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Box and
YouTube.

Other features include the BlackBerry Link syncing software,
which is fairly straightforward, automatically sussing out your
music, pics and vids on your computer and lining them up for
syncing. NFC's on board too and you can use it for both payments or
for changing your settings using smart tags. BlackBerry Maps is
favoured over Google and while it's not as detailed or as well
featured as the world leader (which can be a problem, as Apple found to its cost recently when it humiliatingly
backtracked on its attempt to oust it from the iOS platform) it'll
get you there in most cases.

BlackBerry

Cameras and battery
The 8-megapixel camera comes with autofocus and an LED flash but
not much in the way of tweaking features. There's no smile or face
detection, and no touch focus either, but it does have TimeShift,
which lets you take five quickfire shots both before and after you
press the shutter -- very handy for capturing elusive moments. It
also has a large F2.2 lens to let in more light and picture quality
is generally pretty good, although it can be a little light on
detail compared to the best. It will record full HD 1080p video
too, and there's a 2-megapixel camera on the front for video calls.
There's 16GB of memory on board though unlike most Windows phones
or indeed the iPhone, you can add up to 64GB more via microSD
card.

The 1,800mAh battery did a decent job of keeping the phone
active throughout a full day of fairly heavy use -- it's certainly
not exceptional, but like most elements of the Z10, it's enough to
keep the wheels on the bus without trying to reinvent them.

Conclusion
BlackBerry had a lot of work to do just to keep itself in the
premium smartphone game, let alone anywhere near the front of the
pack, and it's safe to say that it hasn't cocked it up (it was
probably a good idea to end any ongoing confusion by ditching the
old company name too). The Z10 may not be exceptional when compared
to its rivals and the premium price doesn't really help it either,
in these days where top-end prices are rolling downwards. But from
its HD screen to its nippy processor, business security features
and decent 8-megapixel camera, it does a sound job. It will be
interesting to see the Qwerty keyboard-toting Q10 in a few weeks' time.

Update: A previous version of
this review eroneously gave a five-out-of-ten score. This was a
technical mistake and the correct score -- eight-out-of-ten -- has
now been added in. We apologise for any confusion this
caused.

Comments

5 out of 10? This is a joke, right?

Say What

Feb 4th 2013

In reply to Say What

Do you think it should be less? I have the Z10 and think 5/10 is a fair assessment. I find the experience quite poor. Nothing to do with the lack of apps, mostly to do with the poor browsing experience and certain parts of the core BB10 platform. Scrolling in the browser is choppy for many pages, especially in landscape mode. There's also very noticeable lag throughout the platform (no need for special social to see this, just drag a slider back and forth).While parts of the system are very smooth, many are not, and this makes everything feel unpolished. The Z10 certainly doesn't feel like a high end handset, more like a mid-range.

Andy

Feb 5th 2013

is this available now in riyadh,saudi arabia?

emy moerae

Feb 4th 2013

Worth Haggling. Both my sister and I were due for upgrades on our phones. I had a look online, then in EE, O2 and Carphone Warehouse. Having compared the Z10 instore with SIII, I got my Z10 with Orange (over the phone) for £30 on a £27.90 per month tariff with unlimited mins+texts+500mb data. Expect my phone in a couple of days. Admittedly, aps aren't as largely available on Z10. However, I believe you can still sideload all major ones. As I have Kindle (sideloaded) on my playbook without issue, I have everything I really want.Also SIII camera definitely looked better than z10 so if you want to make this a consideration, do so. This was a major plus point for my sister who switched to Samsung but then she has a Samsung tablet, (her deal with Orange, £50 for the phone, £26per month for unlimited mins+texts+500mb data, which works out £25 cheaper than my deal but my phone only came out on Thursday).Neither my sister or I considered an iphone because of the cost, memory limitations and the phaff of using itunes anytime we want to transfer anything to our phones.A major point about z10 is that if you have a playbook than you can connect to the internet wherever you are on your tablet via your phone. As such, neither Samsung, or apple offer this. I have a wifi only 64gb playbook which was bought for £230 (30th b'day present). If you combine all these costs (including tablet) over a 2 year period that comes to about £930, roughly £38.75 a month. I doubt Samsung or Apple can even come close to doing this at present.

Diva

Feb 4th 2013

Most Android phones can create a personal hotspot allowing wireless only tablets to connect to them and use their data allowance. So not unique to BB. I have Blackberry phones and Playbook and while the major apps are there I got so frustrated with not being able to find the more specialist apps you can get on Andriod and iphone that I now have an adriod tablet as well.

sam

Feb 4th 2013

In reply to sam

Actually most service providers charge extra to enable the personal hotspot function on Android and iPhones. You have to purchase extra tethering bundles. It is a shame that there are less apps available for BlackBerry but unless having an app that tells you how long to boil an egg, I find that most of the BB apps suffice. I believe that there will be far more quality apps available for BB10 than previous versions of BB.

Sean

Feb 5th 2013

BB10 compares to last years phones. And even then it doesn't stack up to those models. It's dual core processor is ancient in tech time. Not using google maps was the fail of 2012 over at Apple. Speaking of not learning from mistakes, are they serious with the Blackberry Enterprise Server? Get ready for prolonged email outages. Being embarrassed to be seen with one is a moot point. It's unlikely anyone will be seen with one.

Lindsey

Feb 5th 2013

In reply to Lindsey

I take it you are an iClone? Or are you a Droid? 'Get ready for prolonged email outages'. Do you even know what you are talking about?

Sean

Feb 5th 2013

In reply to Lindsey

Please show me any app that takes advantage of quad-core chips...in terms of yesterday's tech, iphone only has 1GB of memory, no expandable storage, and is also a dual core...you, sir do not know what you are talking about.

Cory Ducey

Feb 5th 2013

In reply to Lindsey

Part of the beauty of BB10 is that it takes advantage of the QNX micro-kernel architecture. It doesn't require anything close to quad cores. This device is blazing fast and the OS is rock-solid. I suggest you try it before bad-mouthing it. As a mobile computer this thing smokes almost anything out there.

Rudi Xeno

Feb 5th 2013

In reply to Rudi Xeno

listen pal wake up and smell the coffee. bb10 is just waking up to the rest of the world .itll do ok (maybe) but the world leaders in os is ios and android FACT. IF YOU HAVE HALF A BRAIN AND NO KEEP UPDATED WAE WHATS HAPPENING IN THE TECH INDUSTRY THEN YOU,LL SEE THAT IM 100%. THREE TOP PHONES OUT THERE IN 2013 WILL BE SONY XPERIA Z , HTC ONE ,AND GALAXY S4 WHEN IT COMES IN 3 WEEKS ,BUT THE NUMBER ONE SELLER YRS RUNNING HAS BEEN SAMSUNG (END OF YEAR FIGURES.FACT). O2 AREA MANAGER. JGA

john

Feb 28th 2013

BB10 is an awesome phone. The new features in it making so easy to navigate between apps. I love the camera and ofc the best part the virtual keyboard which no other phone has it. I love my BB10.

Adam Dallas

Feb 5th 2013

Awesome phone, love the virtual keyboard, u gotta see it and switching btw apps never been easier. No other phone has it

Adam Dallas

Feb 5th 2013

5/10 - I didn't read many negative comments in this review. I really don't understand? To the person who was writing about browser lag, there must be a glitch of some kind? Either in your phone or network? I've been using the Z10 for three days and the browser loads faster than my desktop connected to the highest speed internet. Now, I live in Canada, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it?

shawn

Feb 5th 2013

In reply to shawn

You live in Canada, yet you've been using the handset for 3 days? How? It's only scheduled to be released in Canada today (5th Feb 2013)!!The glitch I speak of has absolutely nothing to do with network speed. It's the way the browser (and other parts of the core BB10 platform) have been coded. It's very easy to reproduce:1. Open this page.2. Turn phone so that page is displayed in landscape mode.3. Zoom in a little to you can read text.4. Scroll.You will be able to see "jitter" (for want of a better word). The scrolling is not pixel perfect, and makes for a terrible user experience. It feels like scrolling on Android handsets before Project Butter. This occurs in other areas too - like in Settings. Go into settings, then select "Display", and then scroll. It's awful! It's the opposite of "smooth and responsive".This isn't a one off issue. Others have reported it on the Z10 community forums and in other reviews. If you say you've had the Z10 for 3 days (even though it was only released in Canada today), then I would be very surprised if you claim you haven't come across this issue. It completely destroys the fluid flow and user experience on the Z10 (I spend a lot of time in the browser, it's not just the odd page here and there).Because of this issue, the Z10 doesn't "feel" like a premium handset.Just my 2 cents worth.

Andy

Feb 5th 2013

I have to agree with you Adam. Excellent phone, I sold my iPhone and bought BB10. Can't wait for the apps Blackberry will come up with.

Oliver Perez

Feb 5th 2013

5/10 does seem a bit harsh considering there wasn't *that* many negative remarks about it and according to the reviewer - does a decent job despite the hefty price. I've seen higher marks for more negatively reviewed smartphones on Wired.

Hoang

Feb 5th 2013

The reviewer writes a fairly balanced assessment of the Z10 which is marred only by the headline grabbing '5 out of 10' score. Perhaps the author is too old and stuck in his ways to 'get it'?

Dougie

Feb 5th 2013

Perplexing rating given the generally positive review. Would have expected at least a 7.

In any case, as long as this reviewer is a consistently 'harsh marker' then I guess it may make sense(?)

Paul

Feb 5th 2013

There was a notation added at the bottom as of 10 min. ago. The score is an 8 out of 10. Typo on the 5 out of 10.

Tom

Feb 5th 2013

I also think it's a great phone. Loving the keyboard, the red led light letting you know you have a message (honestly, why others don't just do it?) and the speed of the thing in great. The only big disappointment (apart from the apps of course) is the battery life: mine doesn't even last a day and that's without making any calls! I honestly do not get the reviewer's comment about the heavy use there. And the worst thing is that if you check the breakdown of the battery usage, the majority goes to...the standby mode. Has anyone had the same impression re. The battery? I'm honestly considering return to Apple...

Mon

Feb 6th 2013

I have always enjoyed the blackberry phones but Z10 is really an embarrassment. I have owned I phone and currently own Samsung Note 2. Z10 IS missing the basic features that any phone user needs. So let me start, no screen locking options rather than just slide up and then enter password. Apps freeze and u have to close and open the app number of times. I had BBM freeze on me just when I needed to send a quick message. whole system is not fluid.I had problems with the keyboard too as it keeps trying to give me the option of capitalizing every word and put symbols. I had to reset the phone number of times to try to get rid of the problem. To make a call there is no shortcut. You have to go to phone then look for your contact and then look for the right option to call. So like four steps to make a call. No texting option from there. You have to go to text message then choose to text the contact. No slide for call or text. BBM hub is not anything special. Overall, not a good phone and no where in comparison with the androids. Samsung has really left it behind. Even making a phone call on Z10 is like dialing from an old phone as I have both and use both. Note 2 is a charm to use and does everything so smoothly. Lots of other issues with Z10 that I can't remember but does puss me off when they happen as I'm using the phone. If u have a choice don't buy it spend ur money on the Samsung. You will be very happy with the Samsung.